Detecting Routines: Applications to Ridesharing Customer Relationship Management

Journal of Marketing Research · 2023 · 12 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Data Mining

Routines shape many aspects of day-to-day consumption. While prior research has established the importance of habits in consumer behavior, little work has been done to understand the implications of routines—which the authors define as repeated behaviors with recurring, temporal structures—for customer management. One reason for this dearth is the difficulty of measuring routines from transaction data, particularly when routines vary substantially across customers. The authors propose a new approach for doing so, which they apply in the context of ridesharing. They model customer-level routines with Bayesian nonparametric Gaussian processes, leveraging a novel kernel that allows for flexible yet precise estimation of routines. These Gaussian processes are nested in inhomogeneous Poisson processes of usage, allowing the authors to estimate customers’ routines and decompose their usage into routine and nonroutine parts. They show the value of detecting routines for customer relationship management in the context of ridesharing, where they find that routines are associated with higher future usage and activity rates, and more resilience to service failures. Moreover, the authors show how these outcomes vary by the types of routines customers have, and by whether trips are part of the customer's routine, suggesting a role for routines in segmentation and targeting.

Gender Discrimination and the Sex Ratio of Immigrants

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

Information Avoidance and Information Seeking Among Parents of Children With ASD

American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities · 2021 · 6 citations

• Psychology
• Medicine
• Psychiatry

We estimated the effects of information avoidance and information seeking among parents of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on age of diagnosis. An online survey was completed by 1,815 parents of children with ASD. Children of parents who self-reported that they had preferred "not to know," reported diagnoses around 3 months later than other children. Children of parents who raised concerns that they perceived as having been dealt with adequately reported diagnoses about 4 months earlier, but the children of parents who reported raising concerns repeatedly and felt that those concerns were dealt with inadequately were diagnosed over a year later. These findings suggest that failure of educational and healthcare professionals, in either substituting for parents who avoid information, or supporting those who seek information, can significantly delay the age of diagnosis.

Detecting Routines in Ride-sharing: Implications for Customer Management

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 1 citations

Clinical signs associated with earlier diagnosis of children with autism Spectrum disorder

BMC Pediatrics · 2021 · 34 citations

• Medicine
• Pediatrics
• Psychiatry

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study is to gain new insights into the relationship between clinical signs and age at diagnosis. METHOD: We utilize a new, large, online survey of 1743 parents of children diagnosed with ASD, and use multiple statistical approaches. These include regression analysis, factor analysis, and machine learning (regression tree). RESULTS: We find that clinical signs that most strongly predict early diagnosis are not necessarily specific to autism, but rather those that initiate the process that eventually leads to an ASD diagnosis. Given the high correlations between symptoms, only a few signs are found to be important in predicting early diagnosis. For several clinical signs we find that their presence and intensity are positively correlated with delayed diagnosis (e.g., tantrums and aggression). Even though our data are drawn from parents' retrospective accounts, we provide evidence that parental recall bias and/or hindsight bias did not play a significant role in shaping our results. CONCLUSION: In the subset of children without early deficits in communication, diagnosis is delayed, and this might be improved if more attention will be given to clinical signs that are not necessarily considered as ASD symptoms. Our findings also suggest that careful attention should be paid to children showing excessive tantrums or aggression, as these behaviors may interfere with an early ASD diagnoses.

Clinical Signs Associated With Earlier Diagnosis of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research Square · 2020-08-27 · 1 citations

Clinical Signs Associated with Earlier Diagnosis of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research Square · 2020-10-14

Information Avoidance and Information Seeking Among Parents of Children with ASD

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 1 citations

Symptoms Leading to Earlier Diagnosis of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

SSRN Electronic Journal · 2019-01-01 · 3 citations

Grandma knows best: Family structure and age of diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder

Autism · 2017-02-08 · 40 citations

This pilot study estimates the effects of family structure on age of diagnosis, with the goal of identifying factors that may accelerate or delay diagnosis. We conducted an online survey with 477 parents of children with autism. In addition, we carried out novel, follow-up surveys of 196 "friends and family," who were referred by parents. Family structure and frequency of interactions with family members have significant effects on age of diagnosis (p < 0.05). In all, 25% of parents report that other individuals indicated that their child might have a serious condition before they themselves suspected it. Moreover, around 50% of friends and family report that they suspected that the child had a serious condition before they were aware that either parent was concerned, suggesting that the clues were there to see, especially for experienced viewers. While half of those individuals shared their concerns with the parents, the other half either did not raise any concern (23%) or just "hinted" at their concern (27%). Among children with siblings, children with an older sibling are diagnosed approximately 10 months earlier (p < 0.01) than those without, and children with no siblings were diagnosed 6-8 months earlier than children with siblings (p < 0.01). Interestingly, frequent interactions with grandparents, especially grandmothers, significantly lowered the age of diagnosis by as much as 5 months (p < 0.05). While this pilot study requires replication, the results identify potential causes for accelerated or delayed diagnosis, which if better understood, could ultimately improve age of diagnosis and treatment, and hence outcomes.